Links 10/1/19

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Great apes use self-experience to anticipate an agent’s action in a false-belief test PNAS. Lambert: “They have a ‘theory of mind'”.

315 billion-tonne iceberg breaks off Antarctica BBC (resilc, David L)

A single tea bag can leak billions of pieces of microplastic into your brew CNN (resilc). A more “Eeew, gross” version of a story we ran earlier.

On Exhaustible Resources Everyday Economist. UserFriendly: “Quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.”

3G Internet and Confidence in Government SSRN (resilc). Important.

Thousands of Ships Fitted With ‘Cheat Devices’ To Divert Poisonous Pollution Into Sea Independent

Woman Who Sleeps In $500 EMF-Blocking Sack Wants Area-Wide Wi-Fi Limits arstechnica

China?

A former Chinese mayor was hiding 13 tonnes of gold bullion at his home – video MBS News. Kevin W: “‘Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb'”.

Brexit

Whoa, this is blunt. Even more amusing, Johnson denied having made this proposal (checkpoints near but not at the border) on BBC 4 Radio:

Syraqistan

Houthi Rebels Trounce Saudi Force Amid Concerns Over The Kingdom’s Military Competence The Drive (resilc)

Houthi rebels video fails to prove Saudi troop capture claim BBC. However, the Saudi silence is awfully loud.

Amid tensions with Iran, US shifts Middle East command from Qatar to S Carolina PressTV. Resilc: “More like prepping for Trump’s civil war threat in USA USA.”

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Can’t You Read? Nina Illingworth (UserFriendly)

YouTube is Experimenting With Ways To Make Its Algorithm Even More Addictive MIT Technology Review

Imperial Collapse Watch

American History for Truthdiggers: A Once, Always and Future Empire TruthDig. John Z: “This is Maj. Danny Sjursen’s (Ret.) last installment of his 38 part series on American History at Truthdig. It contains links to all the other parts.His analysis is particularly perceptive and he has a deep understanding of the overarching forces at work in American history.”

Trump Transition

Trump asked Australian leader to help investigate Mueller probe origins NBC

How Australia responded to Donald Trump’s push for help discrediting the Russia investigation news.com.au. Kevin W: “Alternate link at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-01/donald-trump-asked-scott-morrison-for-help-mueller-report/11562604

Border Crisis: Arizona Desert Crossing Has Claimed Thousands of Lives Rolling Stone (furzy)

Trump Knew the Ukrainian Conspiracy Theory Had Been Debunked — But Pushed It Anyway Rolling Stone (furzy)

‘Straight Shooter’ Justice Dept. Watchdog Has Held His Fire on Powerful People RealClearInvestigations (UserFriendly)

Impeachment

Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community’s Statement on Processing of Whistleblower Complaints Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. An awfully weedy press release.

Trump impeachment: Lawyer Rudy Giuliani subpoenaed for documents BBC. Oh, now we get to the real fun. Giuliani was wearing a lot of hats for Trump. He can claim attorney-client privilege, and courts are very deferential to that, but attorney-client privilege extends only to legal as opposed to say, business or political advice. Next fallback is executive privilege. This will be instructive, needless to say…

Trump Threatens “Civil War” If He’s Impeached Vanity Fair and GOP lawmaker blasts Trump for quoting pastor warning of civil war over impeachment The Hill (resilc)

Whistleblower Complaint: Now Trump Talks of Civil War and Treason Bloomberg. Furzy: “Transcript-gate is eeirily like Nixon’s tapes being revealed by Dean….”

The Ukraine Scandal Might Be a Bad Gambit for Democrats Aaron Mate, Nation

Ukraine: A Short History of Meddling Yasha Levine

MoveOn’s Phony New Campaign for ‘Protecting Whistleblowers’ Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

‘Coded racist rhetoric’? CNN under fire for crediting group of white congresswomen with Trump impeachment inquiry RT (Kevin W)

Twisted Pair 1 – US Ilargi. Note the info about the impeachment process change (no floor vote) has been repeated, and therefore I assume confirmed, by non-right wing sites.

2020

Who Ordered This Clinton Comeback Tour? New York Magazine. Resilc: “If I see much more of her I’ll vote for Trump.”

Joe Biden’s Digital Ads Are Disappearing. Not a Good Sign, Strategists Say. New York Times (resilc)

Americans spent decades discussing rule of law. Why would anyone believe us now? Washington Post

The Failed Political Promise of Silicon Valley New Republic

Health Care

A Tale of Two Hospitals; One Survived, the Other Didn’t Daily Yonder (boots)

Rural hospitals, already cut by Medicare, are about to get their Medicaid payments reduced, too; here’s a partial Kentucky list Kentucky Health News (boots)

The Bezzle

The At-Home Rape Kit Start-up Is a Useless Mess The Cut. UserFriendly: “Dear God who ever green lit this?”

Dog-Walking Startup Wag Raised $300 Million To Unleash Growth. Then Things Got Messy CNN

WeWork shows why some venture capitalists are in a world of make-believe Economist (UserFriendly)

California Governor Signs Plan to Let N.C.A.A. Athletes Be Paid New York Times

Stock Buybacks Threaten Economic Growth Worth. UserFriendly: “Notable for where it’s published.”

‘Unconstitutional, unlawful and unsupported’: How Facebook initially tried to fight a multibillion-dollar U.S. fine Washington Post (Kevin W)

Fannie, Freddie to Retain Earnings Wall Street Journal. The hedgies get their payoff.

Class Warfare

These Sheriffs Release Sick Inmates to Avoid Paying Their Hospital Bills ProPublica (resilc)

U.S. Inequality Reached Highest Level in 50 Years: Census Time

America’s Perilous Path Of Wealth Distribution Global Macro Monitor (UserFriendly)

San Francisco is pulling out all the stops to fight homelessness – except actually making housing affordable​ RT (Kevin W)

The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen New York Times (UserFriendly)

Autonomous Weapons Need Autonomous Lawyers Air Force JAG Corps Reporter (resilc)

Antidote du jour (furzy):

And a bonus:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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135 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “315 billion-tonne iceberg breaks off Antarctica”

    You want to know the difference between this headline and a similar one from ten years in the future? The one in the future will say that there is “only” a 315 billion-tonne iceberg that has broken away. And that this time there is only one of them.

    Loved furzy’s kittens in the Antidote du jour BTW.

    1. a different chris

      I don’t even think it will be mentioned in the future. They will say “people aren’t interested, they want to read about Prince WIlliam instead!”

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      On this particular iceberg, I read somewhere that its breaking off is due to more new ice, i.e. growth, at the head of its glacier, pushing this one into the sea.

      Bigger, or more, in similar situations would mean further growth of glaciers at their sources (that is, in this type of situations, achieving equilibrium, per the article I read…to balance out…equilibrium, and not, say, due to warming…a different type).

  2. Henry Moon Pie

    Ilargi’s take on impeachment–

    Good as far as it goes, but it misses what’s really driving this. I’d call this a CIA color coup employing the Democratic Party as its vehicle. Reluctant Pelosi was overwhelmed by the CIA Dems who are pushing this. Now this gang is out to remove a President for failing to start enough wars. Watch ten minutes of MSDNC and all you will hear is “ex-intelligence community official,” “security threat,” and “Russia” over and over again. These lunatics really mean to take us to war, a real war and maybe a nuclear one, and the people running the Democratic Party are willing to trade a new war for the “restoration.”

    I have no use for Trump, but we’re about to establish a precedent here for requiring the CIA to sign-off its approval for any President, and that means we will never have a President who pulls us off this self-destructive path.

    It’s pretty sad when those who hope for peace have to rely on the Republicans in the Senate to protect us from the Neocons.

      1. JTMcPhee

        Was that a CIA failure, or was it their greatest success? How the heck will we ever know, in this land of befuddlement where the Mockingbirds sing and CIA and the rest sow endless “fear, uncertainty and doubt”?

        1. drumlin woodchuckles

          I vote for ” greatest success ” . Followed up on with the anthrax attacks, just to make sure that the “greatest success” succeeded greatestly.

          1. Gaianne

            Yes, the anthrax attacks! So forgettable now, but so important at the time for shaping the mood.

            –Gaianne

    1. flora

      The agencies and the MIC are fighting desperately to protect and increase their budgets, imo. They’ll end up bankrupting the country, if the ‘health care racket doesn’t bankrupt us first. imo.

      1. inode_buddha

        Since 1992 I’ve been saying that the US will collapse in the same way as the Soviet Union, and for the same reasons.. I tell people to be well, and be prepared.

        1. Wukchumni

          It’ll be freakishly different though, as none of the pesky things such as holding title to real estate or consumer goods, was much of a bother in the USSR, nor were they used to ‘making money’ which has been our curse.

          One thing that’ll come out of it, is the uber rich will not be flaunting it anymore, some might go as far as knocking out a tooth or 2, to better blend into society @ large.

          1. Cripes

            Blending in to society is not part of the Uberrich plan. Apocalypse shelters? Check. Private planes, gated transport and communities? Check. Private islands? Check. The only blending they’re thinking about is Soylent Green.

        2. Dan

          How about a power point presentation on that?
          Oldie but goodie:

          “…Slide [5] Continuing with our list of superpower similarities, many of the problems that sunk the Soviet Union are now endangering the United States as well. Such as a huge, well-equipped, very expensive military, with no clear mission, bogged down in fighting Muslim insurgents. Such as energy shortfalls linked to peaking oil production. Such as a persistently unfavorable trade balance, resulting in runaway foreign debt. Add to that a delusional self-image, an inflexible ideology, and an unresponsive political system.”
          https://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-04/closing-collapse-gap-ussr-was-better-prepared-collapse-us/

    2. JohnnyGL

      I don’t think this is purely a CIA-intel community driven phenomenon, by any stretch. There’s been a lot of grassroots pressure on various team dem congressional reps and the CIA dems famously promoted by CNN, were among the last holdouts to flip.

      It’s clear they’re playing an insiders’ game and they’ve got strings they can pull with party leaders like Schiff and Pelosi, but the situation is getting a lot more volatile and impeachment looked pretty well bottled up a few weeks ago. But, as ryan grim reported in the intercept, there have been grassroots forces pushing below the surface, ignored and denied by the dc insiders. Now, suddenly, wheels are turning and trump’s team looks like they’ve switched into a defensive/survival posture. He’s intent on making sure biden goes down along with him. He understands quite well that team dem WILL NOT throw biden under the bus and he’s going to keep hammering them over that.

      I’ve theorized that team dem can’t pull off impeachment without being willing to throw biden under the bus. I think this is going to be tested.

      1. Eureka Springs

        Just keep spreading this link, 2 mins of Joe in his own words. I can’t believe it has less than 30k views.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urTk6O4c0mU

        And, imo, the post by b at moonofalabama was the single best post on all of this in the last week.
        https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/on-the-motives-behind-whistleblower-gate.html#more

        b mentions the US and Ukr have a treaty to cooperate on matters of law enforcement. Sure seems to me like Biden among so many other wrongs violated that egregiously, while Trump was hoping to restore that kind of cooperation. Of course both had ulterior motives but Biden by far is the worst offender.

        1. polecat

          Yes, both have the utmost ‘Integrity’, so I hear …
          Such ‘Intiative’ they show ….

          Oh look, a Tweet ! .. or Hundreds …
          Why don’t we ask Jack ..$h!te what it all meanies .. or we can straight to the sources mouth(s) @ the UK 77th brigade …..

      2. anon in so cal

        Team Dem has Warren as backup. But this has taken the focus off of Biden’s cognitive challenges.

        Tucker Carlson is so far the only MSM pundit to mention US regime change in Ukraine, including the Obama CIA Nuland Maidan putsch. And the only pundit to ask, why can’t the US forge peace with Russia.

      3. flora

        Gabbard has made the next debate, in theory. Wonder if team Dem lets her on stage hoping she lands a zinger on Biden the way she zinged Harris? That would be her throwing Biden under the bus, not team Dem, and clear that obstacle. (I’ll remove my foil bonnet now. ;) )

      4. a different chris

        I almost agree except I do think they will “throw Biden under the bus”, but only after, as Churchill observed, exhausting every other option.

      5. Katniss Everdeen

        I think biden’s pretty much thrown himself under the bus. Even his best friend barack tried to get him to stay on the sidewalk.

        The pollsters and pundits have been tossing him life preservers which he’s refusing to grab. (Please excuse the metaphor mixing.)

        Impeachment will be the excuse to suspend the rescue effort.

      6. NotTimothyGeithner

        The Democratic elites use local committee people to bludgeon the left both through organizing and as shields. I mean those little pot lucks are so damn nice! One difference between 2007 and today is Kerry wasn’t as unsinkable as HRC. The promises of Hillary the Inevitable and the damage that was done to local and state committees has built up. Pelosi and friends promised Bob Mueller would restore order.

        For anyone who remembers Rush Limbaugh’s treatment of Chelsea back in the day, I think many Democratic voters really did believe HRC would go after the GOP in revenge. Pelosi attacking AOC and trying to build Trump’s wall but shorter isn’t a good look.

        When they have nothing else to offer…they have to come up with something. Obviously, they aren’t going to do tie funding of the MIC to gun control, so trying to make “guns” an issue without acting won’t fly when people want results. Many of the “New Dems” are pro-gun. Mark Warner had an A rating from the NRA through Sandy Hook when he saw the light despite being a parent of high schoolers during Columbine and former Governor of Virginia during the VPISU massacre.

        Its been observed that Team Blue would prefer Trump be reelected to a Sanders Presidency but to do that they can’t lose nostalgia voters who believed Hillary and Bernie weren’t that far apart, a common refrain of Team Clinton.

    3. antidlc

      JOHN KIRIAKOU: What was this CIA Officer Thinking?

      https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/30/john-kiriakou-what-was-this-cia-officer-thinking/

      Odd Choice of Attorneys

      The second thing that interests me is the officer’s hiring of Mark Zaid to represent him, rather than one of more than a dozen A-list national security attorneys at three or four major law firms in Washington. Zaid is literally the worst possible choice for any whistleblower in national security. Zaid briefly represented CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, who was accused of leaking classified information to The New York Times’ James Risen. But while the FBI was looking at three different people as Risen’s possible source, Zaid sent a letter to the FBI saying, “I think my client is guilty.” The FBI dropped the other two investigations and focused only on Sterling, who went to trial, consistently protested his innocence, was convicted, and spent three-and-a-half years in prison.

      1. Katniss Everdeen

        Curiouser and curiouser.

        From the link: MoveOn’s Phony New Campaign for ‘Protecting Whistleblowers’ Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

        The organization that MoveOn just teamed up with – Whistleblower Aid – explicitly does not support people like Snowden, Drake, Kiriakou, Sterling and Manning, or the more recent whistleblower Reality Winner. The founding legal partner at Whistleblower Aid, Mark Zaid, has maintained a vehement position against unauthorized release of classified information for many years.

        “As a matter of law, no one who leaks classified information to the media (instead of to an appropriate governmental authority) is a whistleblower entitled to legal protection,” Zaid wrote in a Washington Post op-ed piece in 2017. “That applies to Winner, Snowden and Chelsea Manning, no matter what one thinks of their actions. The law appropriately protects only those who follow it. Anyone who acts contrary does so at their own peril.”

        It would appear that Mr. Zaid feels the only good “whistleblower” is the one who gives those he or she would expose advance notice, the power to bury, and the opportunity to destroy evidence in advance of public release of the complaint. No ambushes allowed.

        That zaid represents this most recent “whistleblower,” would seem to indicate that the complainant has received the intelligence community and pussy hat posse good housekeeping seal of approval.

        1. flora

          an aside: speaking of Snowden, the link “Can’t You Read? – Nina Illingworth ” is a must-read, imo.

        2. antidlc

          From the link:

          Experts always say that when you want to know what is really being discussed in a complicated and sensitive report, you must read the footnotes. Well, if you really want to know what’s happening in this impeachment scandal, look closely at the peripheral players. That’s where the real story is.

        3. The Rev Kev

          John Kiriakou made the point on a Jimmy Dore video this week that any person that used official channels to complain about wrongdoing could expect a morning raid with pistols in their face to be followed by a prison sentence.

    4. Briny

      Oh, it’s a color coup, but also a preemptive strike prior to the revelations of Barr and Horowitz into Russiagate and its particulars. If you look in the mirror, what Trump is being accused of happens to be what the Obama Whitehouse did in practice. First the strong-arming of Ukraine by Biden, with his boss’es full knowledge according to Biden, and second, conducting an intelligence operation into the political campaign of the Other party No way did FBI and CIA wander off the reservation unilaterally, and in tandem, without official blessing from the top.

      Coincidence? Not fragging likely. That report is supposed to be out shortly and is already making the rounds to insiders in both parties.

    5. pnongrata

      Dems only want to cover up their own mess. They are completely happy with Trump’s presidency, they just need to pretend once in a while that ‘we’re trying’. Plus, it overshadows the primaries race, effectively favoring establishment figures like Biden.

      Losing has never been so profitable.

    1. Steve H.

      At least one study on political charisma included virility as a factor, specifically the number of affairs and liasons. Such revelations never seem to hurt Putin, Clinton, or Trump with reference to getting votes from their base. So which story is supposed to cover up which in the Tweet?

      Patriot’s coach Bill Belichick was recently called out for giving a death stare to a reporter who dared to ask a relevant question, despite their simpering. Bill Belichick has given millions of dollars to rapists and murderers. Mil-lions, that is not an exaggeration. But he keeps winning, so it’s all good.

  3. Wukchumni

    Fannie, Freddie to Retain Earnings Wall Street Journal. The hedgies get their payoff.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Fannie Mae was around $60 a share in 2007, and now new & improved housing bubble part deux has eclipsed old prices, smashing them in locales such as Seattle & Denver, so why is Fannie Mae stock worth less than $4 presently?

    If it was instead a home in San Francisco that was worth a million, it’d be worth $70k now. Something doesn’t jive.

  4. toshiro_mifune

    The At-Home Rape Kit Start-up Is a Useless Mess
    …. I am almost at a loss for words on this one. There is no possible way anything gathered with this would be legally admissible. I can’t tell if this is pure opportunist grift or if the startup’s founders actually believe in this.

    1. Mike

      And what does it matter if they “believe” it or not? Green cheese IS the moon if enough rubes fall for it – the issue is the unbelievable amount of repetition of these memes despite their nonsensical basis, and for that we need to rein in the idiocy of the media and their grab for advertising of any sort- even lies.

    2. Katniss Everdeen

      ….. I am almost at a loss for words on this one.

      “MeToo.”

      I poked around a bit on the “website.” The FAQ link in the article “could not be found.” According to the article, the “victim” apparently swabs somewhere, spits in a tube and sends it all in along with her / his clothing.

      What I couldn’t find out was what information all this is being tested for–what the customer is supposed to get for her / his money.

      1. Off The Street

        If you act now to send in a Whistleblower notice using the new form you get a same-day delivery free home kit. You’d have to pay extra for the home-study course in chain of custody and due process.

  5. Steve H.

    > These Sheriffs Release Sick Inmates to Avoid Paying Their Hospital Bills

    “one inmate’s medical care cost about $300,000.”

    Sheriff is an elected position. Their budget requires local taxation. DO(math).

    This timeline starts no later than Reagan clearing out the psychiatric hospitals.

    1. JTMcPhee

      A former governor of Illinois, Republican “Big Jim” Thompson, dumped the residents of Illinois mental institutions onto the streets long before Reagan followed suit. Claim was that it would “save the state money.” I recall a follow-up in the Chicago Tribune where it turns out that the costs dumped on local and other state functions (police, jails, hospitals) and of course do-gooders who stepped up to try to help the “de-institutionalized” were on the order of (annually) $200 million.

      Kind of what the Rep Governor and legislature of FL are trying, once again, to do down here — doing a legislature mandated “redesign” of the Medicare Waiver program. This, among other good things, provides funding for help to disabled people so they can continue to live with their families in their own homes, versus being “institutionalized” under the “care” that one gets in the dumping grounds that are “nursing” and “care homes and facilities. This is just a wealth transfer of tax revenues to the owners of the “institutions,” away from from the proven cost-effective arrangement of leaving tens of thousands of people in their own homes and among the family members and care givers who will actually, you know, “care” for them, versus shortening their lives and immiserating all but the Elite by “providing care” for them.

      “Redesign:” another euphemism for the Neoliberal dictionary…

  6. timbers

    Trump Transition

    Trump asked Australian leader to help investigate Mueller probe origins NBC

    How Australia responded to Donald Trump’s push for help discrediting the Russia investigation news.com.au. Kevin W:

    Also too, Trump hasn’t started a major profitable war yet.

    We’d better impeach him for these crimes against the elites.

    It won’t happen but that’s not the point – Blue Team might even loss a few races because of it. The point is, Team Blue will have something to talk about so they don’t have to talk about how awful they are on healthcare and other issues.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Looks like Alexander Downer’s part in trying to bring down Trump has come back to haunt him. Alexander Downer is a third generation politician and is definitely part of Australia’s political establishment aka the Blob. He has been the Opposition Leader, the Leader of the Liberal Party, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Australian High Commissioner to the UK. He would be a good contact person with our part of the Five Eyes intelligence setup and may account for him being used in London. I doubt that he will be thrown to the wolves as he comes from the same political party as the present Government in power.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Downer

  7. Wukchumni

    A former Chinese mayor was hiding 13 tonnes of gold bullion at his home – video MBS News.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    A former mayor of an obscure Chinese town managed to squirrel away 300,000 troy ounces of all that glitters that he left out in the open in his basement, yeah no.

    Gold-plated tungsten is my guess…

    1. David Carl Grimes

      He also had Euro 34 billion in cash. How does a mayor of an obscure town get so rich? He might even be richer than El Chapo. Is he a drug lord too?

    2. John k

      Yeah but…
      Apparently this small part… musta had huge amount of cash, too.
      Just smart investments, officer…

  8. Nikki

    Regarding: ‘ He can claim attorney-client privilege, and courts are very deferential to that, but attorney-client privilege extends only to legal as opposed to say, business or political advice. ‘

    Nor does attorney-client privilege extend to hiding criminal activity. Chief Judge of the D.C. court,
    Beryl Howell, wrote such in her thirty-seven page opinion which granted Mueller his grand jury. (Personal note, Beryl was one of my college classmates, one who was always willing to offer her opinions on politics and society at a drop of a hat.)

    1. The Beeman

      Are you assuming facts not in evidence (criminal activity) wrt piercing attorney client privilege?

    2. Yves Smith Post author

      Do you forget that:

      1. Ukraine has a prosecution cooperation agreement with the US?

      2. The Obama Administration pressed Ukraine re turning over info on Paul Manafort, then the head campaign strategist for Trump, and succeeded? By contrast, the Trump Administration released the foreign aid it had withheld from Ukraine without getting anything that Trump mention in his call with its president?

      3. Impeachment does not establish criminality. The House of Representatives and Senate are not courts. As the House website says:

      The power of impeachment is limited to removal from office but also provides for a removed officer to be disqualified from holding future office. Fines and potential jail time for crimes committed while in office are left to civil courts.

  9. Wukchumni

    Woman Who Sleeps In $500 EMF-Blocking Sack Wants Area-Wide Wi-Fi Limits arstechnica
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I have a similar setup in the back of beyond when ensconced in a hammock, my 20 degree greasy fart sack blocks all wi-fi area-wide in the wilderness.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I find it amazing that the local mayor came up with the idea of limiting the hours of access in the village by putting timer switches on the routers in the school, Town Hall, and doctor’s surgery on someone’s say-so. It reminds me of the Vegan woman who took her neighbours to court in Western Australia over the smell of fish from their barbecues.
      If you were mischievously minded, you would get into the school, town hall, and doctor’s surgery after dark with a heat gun and melt anything plastic within a one yard radius of those routers.

    2. Krystyn Walentka

      That article is the worst form of gas lighting. Really? A guy with a tinfoil hat on the lede? Ignoring the non-ionizing biological changes that have been show in mammals?

      I have no doubt that there are many people who think they have EMF sensitivities that
      do not. And that there are many people who DO have EMF sensitivities that do not know it. That woman in the article, I do not know if she is affected or not, I know that she does not understand the science.

      Until they look at how genetic variation might play a role in these sensitivities we will always be kooks, because we are outliers on their statistical curve.

      If you do not find it fascinating that the one gene most closely linked to Mood Disorders, CACNA1C, is a gene for the same Voltage Calcium Ion Channel which they find is affected by EMFs there is nothing left to say.

      So fond people with mood disorders AND who have the CACNA1C risk genes and test THEM for changes when exposed to EMFs.

      1. lordkoos

        My wife and I are 68, we have found that wifi seems to disturb our sleep, so we keep the router on a timer to shut it down at night. Maybe we’re crazy but I figure it can’t hurt.

        1. inode_buddha

          What about power lines in the walls? they emit a significant amount, particularly when large inductive loads like refrigerators start up.

          1. Krystyn Walentka

            Yeah, ELF-EMFs are a problem, more so when there is a large current that creates a strong magnetic field. I have lived in apartments where the magnetic field in living areas was well above 900nT. I did not do well living there.

        2. Off The Street

          Chart your experiences hourly and pay attention to any tinnitus effects, too. Mine flares up whenever electronic devices are in use, so yet another argument for silent Saturdays or similar programs. I saw a blurb recently about some sub-audio emissions from so-called smart televisions, used to communicate with other smarty devices. Now I’ll give them all off switch dunce caps and make them sit in the corner to get some relief.

          1. Krystyn Walentka

            Yes, tinnitus. I am not saying EMFs cause all tinnitus, but it is one symptom that I noticed changed based on location well before I knew about EMFs. I found when I was camping it would go away, for instance. Some people might say it was just because I was more relaxed but they offer no explanation why I am NOT relaxed when I am NOT camping.

            And note that the calcium ion channels are implicated in tinnitus.

            https://holtlab.med.wayne.edu/nice

            1. Joey

              Most tinnitus is internal gain due to conduction deficits from otosclerosis. That is to say, your ears are scarred and you’re trying too hard to hear and get feedback noise. I’ll believe its WiFi when toddlers complain, not aging boomers.

  10. jfleni

    RE: Rural Hospital Closings Reach Crisis Stage.

    Naturally this happens while uncle Joe and his clodhopper plutocrats babble medicare for all which they desperately want to
    kill.

    1. Katniss Everdeen

      I’d like to ask a democrat, any democrat, which detail of obamacare needs to be “tweaked” or “built on” in order to fix this.

      Come to think of it, I’d like to ask the man for whom the program was named himself.

      1. antidlc

        THIS!!!

        I am waiting for someone to ask Biden what, EXACTLY, his plans are to “fix” Obamacare.

        1. Eureka Springs

          I hear you but that’s talking their book. They win no matter what.

          Kill health insurance companies. Kill them dead. I want a national parade where we burn their articles of incorporation and the nine hundred pages of PPACA in celebration of Jaypals Bill as law.

        2. NotTimothyGeithner

          The problem is the need for a follow up question to this question because the refusal to expand Medicaid by Republicans and the closure of rural hospitals provide a deflection to this question. Blue states with Democratic legislatures have problems too. WIth Biden’s shamelessness, he’ll blame the “bad” Republicans who will remain nameless while promising to work with the “good” ones like his friend DIck Cheney.

          Polling is polling, but ACA hasn’t addressed so many of the major problems, even with the Medicaid expansion. Going into higher income states, being above the poverty line can be a disaster.

          This is why I don’t like debates. A proper town hall with numerous questions and opportunities to ask is better.

  11. zagonostra

    Aaron Mate>

    In Washington, elites generally face consequences for the harm they cause not to the general population but to other members of the club.

    That’s because the “general population” doesn’t exist as a coherent force. That’s why a small well organized minority once it sufficiently congeals will get it’s way/policy passed. And, that’s why as long as one group(identity politics), cause(climate change), personality (Trump), or other story de jure focuses the mind of the masses, M4A, less traffic congestion, clean water, turning swords in to plowshare ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

  12. The Rev Kev

    “An octopus changing colors while sleeping has prompted marine biologists to question if it can dream”

    So the question remains – Do Octopuses Dream of Electric Eels?

    1. ewmayer

      Sing along with me:

      “If you see a big eel
      and its teeth are like steel
      it’s a moray…”

  13. PlutoniumKun

    Houthi Rebels Trounce Saudi Force Amid Concerns Over The Kingdom’s Military Competence The Drive (

    resilc)

    Houthi rebels video fails to prove Saudi troop capture claim BBC. However, the Saudi silence is awfully loud.

    I’m showing a bit of military nerdiness here, but one point I haven’t seem made so far in the media is that the photos of destroyed vehicles, including the one show on ‘The Drive’ article, include a lot of what appear to be Swiss made Piranha vehicles (there are numerous licensed variations, so maybe not from Switzerland). According to Wikipedia, the Saudi Army does not use these. However, the Saudi Arabian National Guard do.

    The National Guard is essentially the tribal militia loyal to the royal family. So far as I’m aware, they are not involved in Yemen, they are a ‘home guard’, and essentially the bodyguard to the royal family. Its also pretty clear from the state of the road in the video clips and photos (very good, newly surfaced), that whatever happened, happened in SA, not Yemen. If it was National Guard units that were ambushed, this means the prisoners were not mercs, but members of the ruling party tribe. This makes it a much bigger deal than if it was a group of Sudanese mercenaries taken out in some border clash. It certainly makes the Houthi claims look very credible.

    1. PlutoniumKun

      oops, I just read further down that Drive article and realised that it made exactly the point I made – that the vehicles are National Guard, not army vehicles. My bad.

      1. Craig H.

        It is an important enough point that it should have been in the first paragraph. Journalism isn’t what it used to be. This is the first time I ever heard of this Rube Goldberg half-tank half-truck and I am glad I am not in one. I tried to find video of them cruising around a NASCAR oval at 100 mph but no such luck. I did find this:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWwTVi1OAIY

        Lots of oohing and ahhing but no video of the thing in motion. Eight wheels? Perhaps there is a twelve wheel version in development. 3/2 the wheels at 32 X the price.

    2. Pespi

      SANG is composed of Bedouins. The Houthi video shows a mix of SANG and Yemeni militia (mercenaries in that Saudi is paying them, not mercenaries as in Blackwater).

  14. The Rev Kev

    “On Exhaustible Resources Everyday Economist”. UserFriendly: “Quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.”

    UserFriendly nailed it. Josh Hendrickson is the sort of guy who will justify out economy going full bore because technology will save us and resource depletion will not be a problem. I have a formula that I formulated for Josh Hendrickson that goes like this-

    E x 6 = – 0.06 x Pt

    Where “E” is the economy and 6 is the number of planets needed for earth’s population to live the middle class lifestyle, “6.25 x P” will be the percentage of a sustainable population that will result and “t” is one century’s time.

    1. Frank Little

      He wrote a pretty funny follow-up to this post where he doubles down on the idea that all his algebra wasn’t relevant:

      If society has exhaustible resources, will markets completely deplete those resources and leave us with nothing? What the model shows is that this will not happen. It doesn’t happen because as the resource is depleted, the price of the resource rises thereby encouraging people to use less of it (Correspondingly, if resources are near the point of depletion shouldn’t energy prices be a lot higher?) So attacking me for using algebra will get applause from a certain type of audience and “algebra doesn’t solve environmental calamity” makes a really good bumper sticker, but it is not a valid critique. The model is an exercise in maintaining consistent logic.

      In the interest of maintaining consistent logic I guess we can conclude that actually sea levels won’t be rising because the Almighty Market is still allowing people to buy and build property in Miami.

      1. inode_buddha

        The job won’t be finished until Wall St. is a canal, complete with gondoliers, pasta, and Disney movies.

      2. lordkoos

        So as food crops become depleted due to climate change, food will get really expensive, hey problem solved.

        1. Titus

          No, not really. Not to make complex math simple but now there is an excess of food both produced and wasted world wide. As most farming is done during day it lends itself to renewables. Now the bad news, food produced say starting about now is likely to be and continue to be so less nutritious. transporting food from any distance beyond fifty miles will require rail or ship. People/families/communities will likely need to keep small gardens. According to UN stats globally about 50 million people die each year, 110 million are born – mostly in Africa (increased rate). According to IPPC this is going to change. Life expectancy is expected to is dropping and is expected to drop everywhere for quite a while. The birthrate is expected to drop. Infant morality is expected to increase.

          People won’t be starving as much as disappearing, 3-4 billion between 2030 -2040, again the same same 2040-2050. This will continue until we reach some equilibrium with the planet. Or don’t and die off entirely. Meaning even as food produced declines, so does the need to consume it.

      3. ChrisPacific

        I took a look and couldn’t believe what I was reading. The whole thing was just a long form reformulation of Zeno’s Paradox. Maybe we could send him to Yemen to explain to them why they can’t ever run out of food.

    2. ewmayer

      Some of the comments from regular NCers are great, e.g. Lord Koos: “So as food crops become depleted due to climate change, food will get really expensive, and presto, problem solved! Let them eat dirt.”

    3. drumlin woodchuckles

      Hendrickson would respond with ” well, that’s what we have a NASA for. Now get out there and find those planets!”

  15. Wukchumni

    San Francisco is pulling out all the stops to fight homelessness – except actually making housing affordable​ RT
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Boulder selection is key when going to homeless anti-napster measures, you don’t want some pansy ones where they can just move them in order to erect their alt-a fabric structures, you need some heft and its easy to take it for granite, when basalt weapons of mass obstruction would suffice, although i’ve never metamorphic I didn’t like, and the latter lends color to a drab neighborhood.

    1. Dan

      Wukchumni,
      That’s the whole point, San Francisco city “government” is “Pulling Out The Stops” for every drifter in the Western Hemisphere who can get there, by providing taxpayer $ for:
      Free overnight shelters for those willing to not drink take drugs or lose it, free food, free cellphones, free lockers, free showers, free haircuts, free pet sitting, free legal services with free translation offered, (3rd World languages only,) free city issued I.D. for undocumented migrants, free local healthcare,”Healthy San Francisco”, free ambulance rides to hospital cafeterias, free dedicated GLBTQ services and shelters, “Jazzy’s Place”, freedom to set up tents and drug sales on any public sidewalk outside of downtown, and last, but not least, 4.4 million free hard plastic injection drug syringes per year handed out, at last count.
      (Balanced however by banning plastic straws.)
      Result? Homelessness is up 17% year over year. What a mystery!

      Search “san francisco list homeless services”
      Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development
      “Note: This list of resources is by no means a complete list of everything available in the City. It should be a starting point for further reference.”

      With all the above, plus the multitude of non-profits servicing the homeless, who needs cheap apartments?

      1. Jeremy Grimm

        Gosh that sounds swell — almost as many amenities as prison or county jail — but there are free drug syringes and a drug market [Are you sure the police leave the drug buyers and sellers alone?]. I’ll go borrow a shopping cart and pack all my gear in trash bags, put on a few shirts, hoodies, pants, and coats, and my best hat and head on out to enjoy the good life homeless in San Francisco.

      2. Acacia

        No free bathrooms, though, to use as a place to shoot up with those free syringes.

        Lived in SF, long ago. Last visit, the one time I tried one of the few imported-from-Europe public WCs down in the Embarcadero, there was an angry denizen of the financial district cursing and hammering on the outside door to move along the homeless person who’d parked within.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Historical grievances between people from Guangdong and those from Fujian?

      From History of Taiwan, Wikipedia:

      Also, there had been various conflicts between Chinese immigrants. Most conflicts were between Han from Fujian and Han from Guangdong, between people from different areas of Fujian, between Han and Hakka settlers, or simply between people of different surnames engaged in clan feuds. Because of the strong provincial loyalties held by these immigrants, the Qing government felt Taiwan was somewhat difficult to govern

      And if you look up the history of, say, Singapore, you will run into similar stories about various groups of Chinese settlers.

      It’s unique that there is a Fujianese association in HK.

  16. The Rev Kev

    “Houthi rebels video fails to prove Saudi troop capture claim”

    Somebody remind me again what the BBC stands for? Could it be the British Bull**** Corps? Is it really up to random commenters to correct their work? Look, there was a press briefing that was a 25 minute film by the Houthis that showed all the damage and the columns of prisoners. This is the link if you want to see it-

    https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/09/29/607432/Yemeni-Army-release-footage-of-Victory-from-God-Almighty-offensive-against-Najran

    If you do not want to watch the whole thing, just go to https://www.rt.com/news/469890-saudis-captured-houthi-offensive-video/ and scroll down to the film clip from Press TV to see hundreds of prisoners in column. I would call that proof if the BBC can’t be bothered watching the full clip.
    Just yesterday the Houthi announced that they were releasing 350 of the prisoners, including three Saudi Arabians. PlutoniumKun brought up the point of how their roads were too well built to be in Yemen. From what I understand, that fight was a running battle over three days which went from Yemen to over the border into Saudi Arabia which may explain the roads.
    Forgot to mention, that article in the Drive was also very sour about this Houthi victory, especially coming from a bunch of brown people. But just because they are brown does not mean that they are no good.

    1. xkeyscored

      I found this article, by Federico Pieraccini, far more credible than either the BBC or Drive drivel.
      From the Drive:
      The credibility of Houthi claims, in general, has seen significant challenges recently after the group claimed responsibility for a series of unprecedented suicide drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility and Khurais oil field earlier in September. There has been a growing body of evidence that suggests that these attacks did not originate in Yemen. That the Iranian-backed Yemeni rebels have released their own clearly fabricated “evidence” to support their claims has only further called them into question.
      If you follow the link to this supposed growing body of evidence, you’ll find rather weak and dubious indications that the attacks on Saudi oil facilities were not launched from inside Yemen. But the Yemeni Armed Forces never claimed that they were. In fact, they specifically referred to a pivotal role played by supporters/allies within Saudi Arabia. And we read that “The exact range of these missiles [Yemeni Quds 1] is unknown, but experts have placed it at around 435 miles based on the limitations of its engine, which appears to be a Czech-made TJ100 turbojet. This would be the same general range as the Ya Ali [Iranian forebear of Quds 1].” Compare that with this: “The Ya Ali is a much smaller missile than the Soumar and while the newest version of the Soumar has a range of up to 1350km. … The rounded wings and stabilizers shown in the Saudi presentation did not match the Ya Ali. Instead they were more reminiscent of the Soumar.”
      In other words, the BBC and Drive chose, with little or no real evidence, not to believe the Yemeni Armed Forces were behind the drone/missile attacks on Aramco facilities. This assumption is now taken as proof they did not rout the Saudis at Najran. Either nothing happened there, or the videos must be fakes. (Hard to imagine the Saudis trying to claim it was Iran this time!)
      Anyway, there’s a “major announcement” from the Yemenis due any time now, in which they’ve promised to reveal more evidence of what exactly happened in and around Najran.

  17. TimmyB

    Regarding the IG press release above, it states the complaint received was a report of:

    “A serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of the law or Executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters.” Id. § 3033(k)(5)(G)(i). The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determined that the Complainant alleged information with respect to such an alleged urgent concern.

    As a practicing attorney, I cannot understand how a US president or his phone calls are “an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence…” This analysis is clearly wrong under our Constitution. The president is NOT under any subordinate official’s responsibility or authority. Of course, nor are his calls an intelligence activity.

    I am not a supporter of Trump by any means, but this whistleblower complaint was improper from the beginning. It appears to be designed only to publicly disclose potentially embarrassed information about Trump and not to blow the whistle on an intelligence activity under the authority of the DNI as required by the statute.

    1. Titus

      As an attorney I can, it’s by statue. In areas of national security, speech may be free but there is nothing that disallows it being monitored. Especially, when consent has been given, which from FDR’s time to now they do. This has been adjudicated many times and is settled case law.

      1. TimmyB

        I really don’t understand how your reply is a response to my comment. My point about the whistleblower statute, 50 USC sec. 3033, has nothing to do with speech being monitored. A whistleblower complaint can be made to the IG if it concerns an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the DNI.

        The subject of Trump’s conversation with the Ukraine’s leader is not an intelligence activity. Nor is Trump under the supervision of the DNI.

        Assuming you are claiming Trump gave permission for his calls to be recorded, that doesn’t change anything. The substance of the calls doesn’t fall under the whistleblower statute, recorded or not. Nor is a president’s activities within the responsibility of the DNI, recorded calls or not. Our Constitution doesn’t allow any law to subordinate to US President’s activities to an inferior officer. The US President is the Chief Executive Officer of the nation. Congress could not pass a law placing his activities under the DNI’s responsibility.

        That’s why this particular whistleblower complaint doesn’t comply with the whistleblower statute and should have been found to be improper by the IG. The IG presents no analysis of this issue in its press release.

  18. John Zelnicker

    Yves, thanks for including my comment with the Link to Danny Sjursen’s post.

    Other important quotes:

    “In the light of the correct, if discomfiting, facts, one must conclude that America carries the baggage of four dark historical themes. These are genocide, racism, hypercapitalism, and empire.”

    and

    “Change, reform, revolution even, must explode from the grass roots, from organized people power. The precious, highly lauded institutions of American representative democracy have failed the people yet again. Only new collectivist bodies, egalitarian citizen groups, can wield the power to demand a new path for the nation.”

    1. RWood

      Generations of historians, pondering the socialism and social democratic and labor parties that developed in the Old World of Europe and across the global south, have been befuddled by the question of why there has been no widespread socialism in America. Though there are no easy answers, some have noted that a peculiar American strain of hyper-individualism, purposeful racial and ethnic divisions of the working class and pervasive attacks on labor unions combined to halt the influence of even mild forms of collectivism and social welfare in this country. { perhaps the effects of continual vigilante justice backed up by local authority and up the scale to application of the domestic intelligence agencies and armed forces to ungovernable individuals and syndicates — since gestation — has quieted many a conscience, though doubtless the insisted merits of capitalist cooperation as heartsblood to the official political ideologies, and our exceptional economy bound with continually new and improved, USAian media, including educational venues, have secured the peace of the nation.}

      The immense power of the military-industrial complex and corporate oligarchs and their misguided xenophobic and racist foot soldiers has, no doubt, only made that American dream seem more distant than ever. [q.v. Ray McGovern https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/27/watch-cn-live-tonight-with-katherine-gun-daniel-ellsberg-scott-ritter-ray-mcgovern-on-whistleblowing-the-iraq-war-and-impeachment-8-pm-edt/ on MICAMT {I didn’t get his actual acronym.} ]

      1. drumlin woodchuckles

        But there was a strong socialist movement with political party or parties in the US from the 1880s till World War 1. In World War 1, Woodrow Wilson ( America’s most Evil president) used America’s Wilson-connived entry in the war as cover under which to exterminate the functional Socialist movements in America. Among other things , the Evil Wilson fabricated legalistic excuses for arresting and convicting Eugene Debs of “violating” some “Espionage Act” or other to get him imprisoned for years, thereby short-circuiting Debs’s Presidential campaign among other things.

  19. The Rev Kev

    “Americans spent decades discussing rule of law. Why would anyone believe us now?”

    I think that I can answer that. It was either Putin or Lavrov who was complaining that the west wants to have a rules-based order but that actually contradicted one based on international law. Rules based simply means that you make up something that helps your side win and then say that everybody has to follow that rule from now on or else. Lots of countries are no longer buying these “rules” dictates anymore such a Russia, China, Turkey, Yemen, etc.

    1. xkeyscored

      Rules based simply means that you make up something that helps your side win and then say that everybody has to follow that rule from now on or else.
      You forgot to add “and you change your mind when it suits you and demand that everybody now follow the new and opposite rule (except US of course ‘cos we’re Exceptional).”

    2. Olga

      If every side followed the ‘rules-based order’ that allowed for attacks on non-threatening countries, kidnapping PMs (remember, when KSA kidnapped Lebanese PM?), and sponsoring colour revolutions wherever – we’d all be in even a bigger doodoo than we are in now. The followers of this rules-based order destroyed Yugoslavia, with no repercussions. With such good rules, who needs chaos?

  20. Wukchumni

    What if the Peloton tv commercials showed a haggard mom dripping buckets of sweat as she was making up time on her Icelandic & Japanese competitors also on exercycles, going nowhere fast?

  21. lyman alpha blob

    RE: Trump Knew the Ukrainian Conspiracy Theory Had Been Debunked — But Pushed It Anyway

    I’ve seen a few articles making similar claims in the last few days and have yet to see the actual debunking. Crowdstrike supposedly examined the DNC servers and declared that Russians hacked them. One of the company’s founders has big time Ukrainian connections. The DNC refused to let the FBI examine the servers. And the part that no one seems to care about at all – the FBI didn’t do a damn thing once he got stonewalled by the DNC! That should have been the end of any ‘investigation’ right there – the FBI couldn’t examine the servers so any evidence of them being hacked is merely hearsay.

    Sure, Trump may have been trying to make some connections that weren’t there (who knows if Ukraine has the servers – my guess is they have been pulverized and thrown down a mine shaft), but I have yet to see the overall narrative be debunked. It’s just the ‘Resistance’ types claiming it didn’t matter that nobody in the government examined the servers and that it’s just fine and dandy that Mueller took Crowdstrike at their word despite their upper mgmt possibly having an enormous axe to grind.

    And yet people are believing this nonsense. One of my best friends repeated this ‘debunked’ line yesterday and it took me about 30 seconds to find any number of articles showing this has not been debunked at all.

    1. kiwi

      The dems/resist types ultimately want to be able to make mere anonymous accusations actionable for purposes of denying people their livelihoods, putting/keeping people in jail, impeaching presidents and judges, without having to deal with the niceties of our legal system or systems of due process, such as having evidence to support the accusation, innocent until proven guilty, habeas corpus, due process, stare decisis, and so on.

      I know I am mixing up criminal and civil here and principles that only apply in certain situations and venues, but it seems that mere accusations by anonymous people shouldn’t be acceptable or actionable. What is to stop anybody from submitting any sort of complaint against anyone? Good faith doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

      1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

        I think I’ll log in every day and lament that we are spending our time and capital and brainwaves on total distractions like this rather than trying to solve our actual problems or trying to defeat Trump on the policy or ballot box level.

        When do we get get to vote for a horse in the Senate? At least circling the drain of Empire should be amusing…

    2. Skip Intro

      The RS Article refers to the Mueller Report as the verification that the Crowdstrike ‘theory’ had been debunked. Not only does the report just accept the Crowdstrike info from the DNC at face value, there really is no conspiracy theory, just the fact that Crowdstrike is the firm that produced the report finding Russian fingerprints in the DNC’s allegedly hacked servers. Even the NSA based its assessment on the crowd strike info alone, at least according to the Reality Winner release.
      That Crowdstrike is biased, and has a history of finding Russian fingerprints on (non-Russian) hacks, is a matter of record. That they are the sole source of forensic information about the DNC servers is also a matter of record.

  22. Wukchumni

    Cops Accused of Stealing Over $225,000 Can’t Be Sued, Thanks to Qualified Immunity

    The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Fresno police officers accused of stealing more than $225,000 while executing a search warrant are protected by qualified immunity and thus cannot be sued over the incident.

    While the unanimous panel acknowledged that “the City Officers ought to have recognized that the alleged theft was morally wrong,” it concluded that they “did not have clear notice that it violated the Fourth Amendment.” In other words, the cops weren’t equipped with enough information to deduce that robbing people is a violation of their constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures—a bizarre interpretation of the law, to say the least.

    https://reason.com/2019/09/20/court-rules-fresno-police-accused-of-stealing-over-225000-protected-by-qualified-immunity-and-cant-be-sued-fourth-amendment/

    1. Off The Street

      The kind of case that leaves a few lawyers asking “For this, I went to law school”?

    2. drumlin woodchuckles

      Perhaps citizens should hide some money in places where only an officer of the law would think to look for it. Perhaps such hidden money should be soaked with ricin or polonium 210 or some other “secret reward” for “finding the money”.

  23. Summer

    RE:YouTube is Experimenting With Ways To Make Its Algorithm Even More Addictive” MIT

    That free aspect of YouTube is what is addictive. “Free” is doing alot of the work they think the algos are responsible for. That’s how financially broke people are (around the world) with rising cost of necessities for living.

    The only reason I see for making it “more addictive” is if they have plans to charge money.

    1. xkeyscored

      Don’t know about where you are, but here the mobile phone companies offer $1 a week (month?) unlimited Youtube service. Never tried it, but I do notice much faster download speeds from there than from many a website.
      Net neutrality? Not even an idea here.

  24. Summer

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/an-actual-conspiracy-kept-jeffrey-epsteins-accomplices-out-of-prison/

    “The four women named had allegedly helped recruit underage girls for Epstein at his direction. But that four-word phrase “but not limited to” gave a free pass to anybody who would have helped Epstein acquire or traffic underage girls for sex. ”

    Epstein saga continuing to reveal the depths of depravity of the establishment people foolishly think are fit to lead anywhere and continue to appeal to and support.
    System fail!

    1. xkeyscored

      continuing to reveal the depths of depravity
      Yes, but to what end? The nineteenth century UK establishment and elite were notorious for their depravity. It wasn’t even secret so much as not mentioned in polite society. The current UK establishment and elite are predominantly their direct continuation.

        1. Off The Street

          There are rumblings periodically about the growing number of sealed indictments, well up in the tens of thousands. Sorry I don’t have a link handy but it should be on a gov’t site. I can only hope that those indictments include quite a few of those best and brightest, along with a smattering of pols and their fellow travelers in the media and other officious positions. That would provide a tiny bit of closure.

  25. flora

    re: Can’t You Read? Nina Illingworth

    Must-read essay, imo. The opening quote from Snowden on privacy and why it’s important reminded me of the arguments to anti-vaxers about why measles vaccines are important – to protect the whole population.

    The description about the slow, inexorable erasure of Snowden and the importance of his information, how that’s been replaced by an endless stream of new, emotionally charged, concocted stories about ‘russiarussiarussia’ to make us forget the real outrage about domestic spying… A new emotion to replace an old emotion: emotion, not thought – emotion replacing thinking….

    1. xkeyscored

      ‘russiarussiarussia’
      And HuaweiHuaweiHuawei!
      It’s staggering that they dare to even contemplate accusing Huawei of possibly being able to spy on people. A sign of their (over?)-confidence in their Full Spectrum Dominance?

  26. Oregoncharles

    “Lib Dems block cross-party plan to install Corbyn as PM if Johnson defeated over no-deal”
    Unfortunately, this makes more sense than first appears. If they install Corbyn, it looks like using the crisis to reverse the election – mainly because it is. Labour isn’t even polling well at the moment. It would be much better to install a technocrat or caretaker. I’m tempted to suggest the one(?) Green, but they’re avid Remainers. From the Welsh or Scottish parties? I don’t know who would be relatively neutral, but I can see that Corbyn, before an election, would look bad.

  27. Susan the other`

    Antidote #2. The body language of a dreaming octopus. Her sleeping changing colors were attributed to her reliving eating a crab. It sounded right. And all I could think of was the research on the human optic nerve which is said to never sleep. It goes 24/7. So does the octopus’ apparently. And also too, related but many times removed – I dream in color, do you?

    1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      Yuuuuup.

      I dream about all the friends, families, and experiences ive had over my lifetime.

      Usually feels like a movie too.

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